Tag: Joy

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is not so much a hierarchy as a two tiered sponge cake …

The physiological needs – food, water, shelter – on which all other needs rely; the base and always the thicker twin of any cut sponge.

Self-actualisation; the top and invariably the more fragile, threatening to break until safely set in place.

And then the middle cream and jam; with time and ambient temperature, a fruit-punctuated mousse – those deficiency needs of Maslow’s: safety (personal, financial and health), love/belonging (friendship, family and intimacy) and esteem (respect from others and self).

New theories sensing that none are more, or less, important, that the other.

And as I was looking down at the needs – whether offered as the traditional pyramid or the less-traditional sponge – I was reminded of the value of a shared table; how a shared table could meet all of these needs, or assist in the meeting if all of these needs.

Food is such a large part of my life – but the majority of my meals are eaten alone …

This question mirrors a second one that replaces “this blog” with “my life”; but that’s for later.

Do I want to investigate ethical, delicious, ‘well’-infusing eating? Do I want to concentrate on exploring what brings ‘joy’ in life? Do I want to empower and highlight women? Do I want to incorporate more beauty into my own life? Do I want to offer my creativity an outlet? Do I want to connect, and connect with, like-minds through writing? Do I want to spark change? Do I want to create value?

Yes.

Yes x 8.

… and now … how …

?

And I sat down again … and again … and felt frustration rise again … and again …

And before, Reader, you think that there’s going to be an answer at the end of this particular entry – let me disabuse you of this possibility now – I still have no idea. Feel free to continue … or leave me here …

But tonight I went to yoga; a class that I can’t usually arrive at in time.

5pm – a work-obligated impossibility.

But tonight I was home – and was pulled towards the unknown – teacher and class at the Gertrude Street Yoga Centre.

I am attracted by the unknown … but not to the unknown … an interesting dichotomy.

I’m not sure if I’ve written about this before, but I have never really liked yoga.

#Confession

I was first introduced at a ‘School’ of yoga – what seems like an aeon ago. I was in one of the first formative years of University, a gym-goer (to lose weight) and looking for something to feed soul as well as body. I decided that yoga was it.

Yoga was not it.

I am a perfectionist by nature. I do things, I do them well. This often stops me from beginning – but it always pushes me to the end, once begun.

This school taught ‘correct’ posture, ‘correct’ breath, ‘correct’ mind emptiness. It gave me an excellent grounding in yoga practice that assists me still – even in the class of today. But it also gave me something to strive for …

And so my long, often stressful, relationship\. I was attracted to the idea of fluid movement, extended body, mind flow … but could never quite ‘accomplish’ it …

But tonight there was a question asked with every pose “Does it feel comfortable?” and the ideas of ‘making space’ and ‘taking space’ that resonated.

I realised that each posture is a way of filling my space. Taking up space. Elongating. Extending. Feeling every muscle …

And I realised that in each posture, comfort was the most important element – but ‘comfort’ in my own skin. ‘Perfect’ was nothing other than that which I …

in the ‘me, my self, I’ /no-one else / just me, context …

feel.

Some days, I know that I want to curl, to hug, to be as small as I can be … to feel as little as possible … and those days I allow my self from time to time … but I also know that they aren’t good for me long term …

And today, I wanted to create my own space – to breathe through movement and to feel every muscle; to let go.

So today – I did.

And today, I ended an hour feeling like molten gold – golden-hued fluidity, enduring, assured that where I was and how I was is perfect.

So – in letting go – I found what I was looking for in my yoga practice. In letting go, I found the sensation that had attracted me in the first place.

And in relation to the blog – and, indeed, my life, I haven’t quite worked out how I can do all of the above … but I do have more faith that an answer will present itself if I stop searching for it and simply make space for it to arrive.

I dread winter – the ease with which I can hibernate, curl up into myself, isolate. Summer offers a brightness that cajoles openness, connection; warmth-created contentment and ease … remnants to capture and store; memorise in order to recall.

HOW TO: Soak up the last vestiges of Summer

Wander slowly to a space that offers sunshine and a park bench.

Turn the mind inward, invite each of the five senses on a stroll through the outside.

Today I am lucky; today I walked slowly up from the coffee shop towards sunshine end-of-street; today there was no-one straddling, sitting, or otherwise commandeering a spot whose back rest sits at a 45 degree angle from upright and whose legs rest offers a chaise longue-like comfort.

… into a moment; where I give myself up to the energy that surrounds me; where I hold no tension; where I am as opposed to am doing.

Bliss … but …

to sink scares me. I feel tether-less. I can’t touch the sides to get bearing; I don’t even know where the sides are.

I fight to find them, to get context, to keep head above water …

I am noting the words used here – I see sinking as something to be battled – adversary and adversity …

Yoga is my perfect example.

I have dabbled in yoga for approximately twenty years …

I am at the age where I had to do the calculations … this age is too old to start a blog that will have impact …

There is so much competition … how will anyone find these words amongst the babble … why bother ?

If I don’t bother, I am guaranteed one result. If I do, the result in unknown …

… reaching for that ‘zen-like’ moment of atom-level calm.

Reaching for a place where reaching doesn’t exist … #irony

Elusive.

I feel tightness, pain, discomfort and I seize. My brain still firmly ‘on’ – and yelling : “you could twist more – shoulder further back – this hurts – where is my knee – focus on the breath – push through – this huuurts”.

And my breath constricts.

And my shoulder and neck muscles tighten.

In my head there is a notion of ‘perfect’ – elements in every pose that must be achieved for the pose to be ‘good’.

Elusive.

No joy.

This week I found myself in a similar position.

A class of many twists. A class of many downward dogs that turned into split stances and hip openers. A class with discomfort.

A class where my head was wishing away time.

And then a dropped phrase that my brain paused to pick up : “living with a whole heart” … openly; all five senses accepting the now as it is …

Sinking.

I know that this is the (very) basic tenet of yoga … but for a second I stopped reaching for ‘perfect’ … or ‘ideal’ … or even ‘better’ … and I surrendered to what I was feeling in the moment …

Physical discomfort with psychological calm. In letting go of an ideal, I let go of the reins. I was.

And after the class a sensation of buoyancy; of joy.

I have already written about the Golden Circle retreat and a similar feeling … where mental and physical activity coalesced … where I sank …

What is the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’?. Was it the combination of physical and psychological exertion that allowed a descent into total submergence? Was it simply the type of physical – does my soul need to be wrung out with yogic twists and dance to connect to joy?

On the 4th of January, I started an 8-week program designed to reduce and then eliminate all sugar from life … no refined sugar, honey, maple syrup as a first step and then no sweetness of any kind including fruit as the next …

But I am super conscious of how I feel in the skin into which I was born as well as that in which I choose to clothe myself. I am also highly aware of my tendency to snack more than I should, to eat less than I should and do both more irregularly that I care to …

… and to overthink all of the above.

A 2-month food routine offered a solution that solved all of the above with brain computation optional.

It was 8pm when the chocolate was melted with a stream of still-steaming water, 8pm when the scent of cacao first wafted into my (super sensitive) olfactory system, 8pm when I was acutely aware of the richness offered by a cocoa, fat, sugar emulsion.

10 minutes later, the KitchenAid was creaming butter with sugar and I realised how much I craved sweetness – not just the taste, but sweetness in life … hugs and kisses and spontaneous laughter; swings in parks and spatula licking.

Spatula-licking gives such satisfaction – such joy. Feeling the still-crystallised sugar on tongue-tip and tasting the creamy, light-as-air sweetness of the whipped beginnings of a cake.

There is something deliciously illicit about the action …

… and the smell and imagined taste enticed my brain like mythical nymphs of the classics.

But I didn’t. No sugar. None. Not a crystal.

The stoic addition of three yolks. The stiff beating of an equal number of whites.

Shoulders tense. Stress rising. Concentration wavering.

I added melted chocolate in a steady stream. Again, the spatula, hugging the sides of the bowl, the final droplets submitting to gravity.

Rising desire … caving to distraction of Kombucha fizz. Skolled.

I added flour … and mixed in the two thirds of sour cream. I folded in the air of egg white and created the perfectly toned batter.

There was little love but an all-consuming desire to taste; to leave an index-finger strip across the mixture. There was little care, but a need to finish before the desire was consummated.

The pillowy-plop of batter dropping onto tin, and the resolute mind of the batter-dropper.

And those last streaks of batter in bowl. The ones crying for a finger to capture or tongue to lick. The ones that I would hope that my Mother would leave; the ones that my grandmother did leave.

The chocolate batter of childhood – made in family kitchens, with shared understandings, complicit spatula sneaking and bowl licking. The innocent joys …

And the chocolate batter of adulthood – made in the quiet, with self-imposed rules, calories. The ‘shoulds’ ruling the ‘wants’.

I need someone inviting me, poking me, or something that prods me, into the first step.

I would love to be the person who sees the opportunity – the potential fun to be had in the unknown or undiarised … who is energised by the mere thought of doing something.

I know those people – you know those people. They are the ones that are surrounded by a group, who are always ‘out’ … they seem very light, carefree … the human equivalent of a Van Gogh wind.

The odd element in my life – I am the person who gets energy from both the unknown and the undiarised … when I’m doing them.

It’s just the first step that needs to be taken … by me … that offers the obstacle.

I was at home yesterday … a Friday … a sunny Friday … a Friday where I should have felt compelled, at the very least, to step outside.

I know that ‘should’ indicates a whole host of other issues … but I ‘should’ have because I knew that I would feel better if I did. I knew that I would feel more connected to the world and with that, my energy levels would rise and with that, I would be more inclined to step out a little further and with that … who knows …

… and yet … I couldn’t drag myself from the dark that had become my apartment (I had closed the blackout blinds at 6am after deciding not to go to the gym) until 4pm and a yin yoga class.

Even then, if truth be told, as well as the enticing idea of a class that I generally can’t get to and that required only a passive-me, I needed the little push of the imminent arrival of house guests and conversation that my brain was not prepared for …

So I stepped out of the house.

And the class was delicious – smile-inducing. And it allowed me to work out my plans for the evening and have those plans fully formed when I returned to houseguests who are also good friends. And, when I returned to good friends, I was mentally prepared and genuinely happy to see them which, in turn made them comfortable, which, in turn, made me happy …